Following up on the last post but perhaps more generally useful

The tone arguments I mentioned last post were (as tone arguments often are) tied in with tactical discussion: in the words of one debater “all this pushing is really starting to piss a lot of people off, including open-minded folks who would otherwise be on your side.” David Gerrold likewise says that you can change more minds by calm reasoned debate and the occasional smart-ass quip than outrage or calling someone a homophobe/chauvinist/bigot.
Personally I’m a big believer in reasoned argument. I think it is an important tactic to use—don’t just say the other person is a hatemonger, show it by overwhelming evidence.
But that’s a tactic, it’s not the one true path. To paraphrase William Garrison the abolitionist, with reasonable men I will reason … but with tyrants I will give no quarter, or waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.”
I use the tactic because I’m good at it. I have no quarrel with other people using mockery, sarcasm, snark or outrage as tactics. They work too, depending on the circumstances and who’s using them. There are limits—death threats, rape threats, “I know where your children go to school,” “Rush Limbaugh is fat!” (yes, he uses lots of lookist insults, but that’s no excuse for indulging in the same)—but beyond those, I’m open to anything.
As for whether they work changing people’s minds—well, this is a criticism I’ve seen flung at a number of liberal blogs. Mocking and condemning the adversary won’t do any good! Reach out! Make reasoned arguments! Be respectful of different opinions! That’s how to win them over!
Sometimes it’s not about winning them over. Sometimes it’s about talking to other people who share your frustration, your anger, you pain. Sometimes it’s about winning over people who aren’t on the other side. The reason I started writing columns and letters to the editor was to present an alternative viewpoint to the right-wing bullshit I saw so often in the local paper back in Florida, if only to make people in the middle see there was one.
Sometimes it’s about providing people who agree with you on a gut level with logical support for their position.I’ve read articles that helped me with that, and I’ve always been grateful that someone can show me yes, my view does make sense!
And sometimes a scream of outrage comes out instead of a reasoned comment because it isn’t a tactic. It’s a scream. And that’s okay too. Telling someone who’s angry because they’ve been slimed by bigotry or intolerance (in whatever form it takes) or personal attacks that they’re off-base to be angry—not cool. As my mum used to say, we all have a right to our own feelings.
As for the commenter who said the SFWA critics were pissing people off—even assuming he’s right, that comes with the territory. Pretty much everything political I ever wrote in the paper pissed people off. That doesn’t mean I was wrong or that I was out of line or using a bad tactic. As Martin Luther King said, there are always people who will tell you you’re moving too fast, go slow, the time isn’t right, you mustn’t push so hard.
It’s never good advice.